Wireless communications capabilities are increasingly being integrated into portable devices, including laptop computers, handheld devices (such as personal digital assistants (PDAs)), and mobile phones. The integration of such capabilities can provide users with anywhere and anytime connectivity to information resources.
Many communications systems include a central controller device that manages available network bandwidth. For example, wireless personal area networks (WPANs) may include a piconet controller device (PNC) that allocates resources for multiple wireless communications devices (DEVs). Such WPANs may operate at various frequencies. For example, organizations such as the Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig) promote the development of WPANs in which devices exchange millimeter wave signals at a 60 gigahertz (GHz) frequency range. Such signals may convey data at very high rates. Thus, these networks may support high data rate (HDR) applications, such as high definition television (HDTV).
Time division multiple access (TDMA) is a resource allocation technique for shared medium networks. TDMA allows multiple devices to share a frequency channel by dividing a time period (such as a superframe) into multiple time slots. For instance, multiple devices may be allocated corresponding (non-overlapping) time slots to transmit data. As a result, multiple devices may send transmissions that do not collide (interfere) with each other.
Devices may have time varying resource needs. For instance, certain applications (such as compressed video, telephony, and so forth) produce traffic having variable bit rates (VBRs). Conventional resource allocation techniques may allocate a resource to a device so that the device's maximum resource needs can always be met. Unfortunately, this approach is wasteful. This is because, for most of the time, the device's varying resource needs are well below its allocated amount.